Roger Quilter
Roger Quilter (1 November 1877–21 September 1953) was an English composer, known particularly for his songs.
Biography
Born in Hove,[1] Sussex, Quilter was a younger son of Sir William Quilter, 1st Baronet, who was a noted art collector. Quilter was educated at Eton College, later becoming a fellow-student of Percy Grainger, Cyril Scott and Henry Balfour Gardiner at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. He belonged to the Frankfurt Group, a circle of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s. His reputation in England rests largely on his songs and on his light music for orchestra, such as his Children's Overture, with its interwoven nursery rhyme tunes, and a suite of music for the play Where the Rainbow Ends. He is noted as an influence on several English composers, including Peter Warlock.[2]
Songs
Roger Quilter's output of songs, more than one hundred in total, added to the canon of English art song that is still sung today. Among the most popular are "Love's Philosophy", "Come Away Death", "Weep You No More", "By the Sea", and his setting of "O Mistress Mine". Quilter's setting of verses from the Tennyson poem "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" is one of his earliest songs but is nonetheless characteristic of the later, mature style.
In November 1936, Quilter's opera Julia was presented at Covent Garden by the British Music Drama Opera Company under the direction of Vladimir Rosing.
Quilter enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with the tenor Gervase Elwes until the latter's death in 1921. As a homosexual, he found it difficult to cope with some of the pressures which he felt were imposed upon him, and eventually deteriorated into mental illness after the loss of his nephew during the Second World War.[3]
He died at his home in St John's Wood, London, a few months after celebrations to mark his 75th birthday.
Selected works
- Songs of the Sea (1901)
- Where the Rainbow Ends (incidental music) (1911)
- Love at the Inn (opera)
- Five English Love Lyrics
- A Children's Overture (1914)
- Five Jacobean Lyrics
- To Julia, Op. 8 (texts of Robert Herrick) (1905)
- Three Pastoral Songs, Op. 22
- Seven Elizabethan Lyrics, Op. 12
- Three Shakespeare Songs, Op. 6
- Three English Dances, Op. 11
References
- ^ Middleton, Judy (2001). Brunswick Town.
- ^ "Grove Music Online Quilter, Roger". Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy. 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-01.
- ^ Langfield, Valerie (2004). "Roger Quilter 1877-1953: His Life, Times and Music" (Document). University of Birmingham.
External links
- Roger Quilter Homepage
- Free scores by Roger Quilter at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Free scores by Roger Quilter in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)